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on their honeymoon – a week in Cromer – that things began to go really wrong. Sod’s Law, of course, that made the weather so awful. It poured with rain throughout and after three days spent cooped up in the hotel lounge, they were bored stiff with each other.
    It was on their last day that he had seen the advertisement. Browsing through the local newspaper, there it was. ‘ General store for sale in pleasant village ; house attached , Box …’ etc., etc. As soon as he saw it he knew. Knew somehow that it was important; in some extraordinary way, meant.
    “I bet it’s way out in the sticks, that’s why it’s so cheap,” was Emmie’s unhelpful comment. Adding the rider that she was not a country bumpkin, never had been, and it was no use asking her to be.
    “We can at least have a look,” he’d said, “needn’t commit ourselves, you’d enjoy the drive.” And despite rumblings from Emmie, they’d gone.
    That last day of their honeymoon, the day they visited Kimbleford for the first time, the weather had improved; a bit wild perhaps, but holding promise of things to come. Heavy showers one minute, brilliant sunshine the next, there was a glint of primroses in the hedge as they turned off the main road and followed the signs to the village. “Look, Em, primroses,” he’d said, trying to cheer her on, but she’d sat sullenly at his side, her dreams of a trendy restaurant on the coast, or even a little bar in Toremolinos, as other dreams had so often done before in Emmie’s life, rapidly fading, and she refused even to look.
    Two miles from the main road, they climbed one last hill and saw below them the village of Kimbleford. Sam, aware of a strange, unexpected feeling of excitement, stopped the car on the grass verge where the road flattened out at the top of the hill, and got out to have a better look. Emmie, still sulking, remained where she was. “I don’t like heights,” she said, “they give me claustro-what’s-it. Anyway it looks like rain again.”
    Pleased to be alone, he lit a cigarette and looked about him. The valley laid out below was quite narrow; certainly for this part of the world, more like a combe in Devon, he thought, as the wind blew a smattering of raindrops in his face. You could see a river running along the bottom, and the tops of the houses of the village that straddled its banks. Beyond the river on the far side of the valley, steep fields mostly under plough climbed to the woods along the top; the road, high hedges just coming into leaf, winding up the hill between them. Sam stood quite still, looking.
    “Come back in the car, you chump,” Emmie called, “you’ll get soaked.” He took no notice; remained standing there getting wet. A ragged black cloud, blown by the wind, raced across the sky above his head and disappeared over the rim of the valley, and he knew, with no feeling of surprise, even any doubt, he had come home.
    The shop proved easy to find, halfway down the main street of the village, a large For Sale notice displayed in its bow-fronted window. Inside was quite spacious; even Emmie seemed impressed by the living accommodation. The house, built in the 18th century by an apothecary with leanings towards gentility, whose recipe for the relief of colic had proved a considerable money spinner, possessed a certain elegance. Three fair sized bedrooms, with high ceilings and sash windows, a fifteen foot living room, and a separate dining room. (“We’ll never have any guests,” Emmie said, poking her head round the door, and sniffing disparagingly, loth to admit that after living in that poky flat for so long, to be the possessor of a real, live, pukka dining room was actually rather exciting, “so what’s the point?”) But the piece de resistance , the thing that really swung it from Emmie’s point of view, was the large up to date and recently renovated kitchen. She had to demur a bit of course. “The place needs loads doing to it. I’m not living